The last time we spoke to Mark Lane it was August of 2008 and he had just accepted an assistant coaching job at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina. The Hamilton-native was excited but being newly appointed he couldn't tell us much about the team at the time as he wasn't familiar with the talent. Eight months later, Mark Lane and his Cape Fear Sea Devils are fresh off from playing in the 16-team national junior college championship in Hutchinson, Kansas for the first time in the school's history. Seeded 5th in their district tournament in which the champion gets a ticket to nationals, Cape Fear (20-12) upset 3 teams seeded higher capped off by knocking out Clinton Junior College 74-70 in the final to win the Region X championship title.

For Head Coach Ryan Mantlo, although the team took time to gel on the court, he was very impressed by his Canadian assistant and what he brought to the table from the get-go. "I felt like coming into the season we had enough talent to win the conference championship, it was a matter of all the talent buying into one system and trusting one another", said the 2nd-year sideline boss. "This team took a long time to fully buy-in but once they did everything fell into place. Mark was a huge asset to our program throughout the season. He stepped in and hit the ground running from day 1. From individual workouts to team travel, Mark was great. He demands excellence from himself and you can see that rubbing off on our players."